


Follow Me Home

by AttackoftheDarkCurses, thebuildingsnotonfire



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Author Rey, Ben is a mess, Editor Ben Solo, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Pining, Romance, Shy Ben Solo, Smut, Teasing, Writer AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-06-14 19:38:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15395952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AttackoftheDarkCurses/pseuds/AttackoftheDarkCurses, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebuildingsnotonfire/pseuds/thebuildingsnotonfire
Summary: The end of the world was nigh, and Rey was going to be the death of him in her midnight dress and her moonlight smile.Ugh. The editor in him was already eye-rolling at the cheesy line. Maybe he was going crazy. Maybe that was just the whiskey.Or maybe he was drunk on her.





	1. En Medias Res

The end of the world was nigh.

At least, that’s how Ben Solo felt as he muttered and grunted and realized with dismay that even three glasses into the swill that was the whiskey he’d been served he could barely string together two sentences in front of his date, the inarguably brilliant and smooth talking Rey. It was somehow only their third official date and, despite every red flag and unavailable signal that he knew he’d unintentionally triggered, Rey seemed to be having fun.

Her hair was done up in a braid that wrapped around her head, a soft crown that highlighted her svelte neck and the smooth curve of her collarbone. She wore an elegant sleeveless black dress that seemed to shimmer in the summer’s evening light and she spoke with a rich and cultured tone that left him breathless if he stopped to listen for too long. No jewelry, his analytical mind couldn’t help but notice. Rey had never once worn jewelry in front of him.

“So, Mr. Solo,” she began, her voice in that intoxicating breathless British accent that had so drawn him to her in the first place, “What’re you going to do when you head to Colorado?”

He’d finally gotten a job offer, but he'd never expected to be moving so far. It seemed like good money. Better view of the landscape than he currently had in his office. Better view of the world than he currently had in his tiny one bedroom. With a few months of conservative spending he’d be able to get a place that didn’t consider two sheets and some drywall a room worth spending $1500 a month on. There were benefits to having a studio but Ben had never gotten used to living in something smaller than some rich woman’s closet.

But, heading to Colorado would mean leaving Rey. Eighteen hundred miles was a lot for any relationship. His rule of thumb was to cut things off whenever timezones started becoming an issue.

So why wasn’t he doing that with her?

Ben snarled and downed another gulp from his glass. Future him was going to hate him in the morning but fuck that guy - he didn’t have to deal with Rey, here and now, who was acting like the imminent breakup was not a big deal.

“Dunno’,” he slurred, finally answering her question. Normally, he would have made a token effort at hiding how much the whiskey affected him. Women didn’t usually care much for a guy who got publicly inebriated while on a date. “Still haven’t decided.”

“Well, you should!” she said, winking and doing a weird thing with her tongue that made him think of the nights they’d spent together. “Get the hell out of this city. There’s too much crap in the air here.”

“I’m not going to become a lumberjack y’know,” he muttered sullenly. “They’re just offering me a new job with a view.”

“Yeah, that pays a good fifteen thousand more than you get now,” Rey pointed out, before taking dainty and careful sip of her own drink.

They’d started off the night at some classy restaurant that had different spoons set aside for different meals. Ben, having grown up with his incredibly practical mother and father, had floundered comically for half a minute before he asked Rey about the proper order of things. She’d laughed, a rich tinkling sound that seemed determined to never leave his ears, and had shown him how to properly cut steak.

(He’d also, coincidentally, discovered his brain’s absurd attention to detail when it came to pretty women grabbing his hands and showing him what to do. He was so fucked for this girl he might as well have come with his own lube.)

And now, because his sober mind clearly wasn’t much better than when it had a liberal amount of alcohol in it, they’d moved on from the classy, high-end restaurant to the seedy-ass bar Hux had somehow managed to acquire ownership of in between the various suck-up operations he’d performed on behalf of their mutual boss. Apparently the guy had been scouting various locations in the area, somewhere between positive and fanatical that the real-estate market was not going to pop like a helium balloon in a sandstorm any time soon. Ben shuddered to think of the kind of capital wasted on the dingy windows and stained wood.

Ben slammed his glass on the counter in front of him and tried to make sense of when the world had started rocking, because he was pretty sure that the walls weren’t supposed to sway the way they were.

“I don’t want to go,” he admitted, finally.

Rey rolled her neck and leaned against the bar counter alongside him. Ben tried not to stare too long at the motion, and failed, because he’d had too much whiskey to notice that was a bad idea.

“Well, why not?” she posed the question.

“Because I like you too much,” he ended up blurting out.

They’d met at a freaking work conference. Or...<em>technically</em> they'd met once before then, but running into each other hardly counted.

She was the street-rat who made it big, riding high on the success of her sci-fi fantasy book series about magical space monks and the girl from nowhere who one day found herself a part of a mystical lineage. It was unnecessarily flowery and a little pretentious, but then Ben had met the creator of the series in person and had decided that flowery and pretentious worked well when Rey had the kind kind of lip bite that could make a man forget to breathe.

He was just a crappy-ass editor, helping to make sure her stuff didn’t get too loquacious or too full of the stupid deus ex machina’s she seemed to have a tendency to include. It all worked, for a given definition of the word, but Ben was a perfectionist - a fact that had ticked off more than a few authors and had nearly gotten him blacklisted by a few agencies.

He’d been the one to shred her original script to pieces (figuratively - not literally, of course) and he’d sent back the result half-expecting to get another “suggested” sabbatical. Instead, the crazy woman had sought him out at the next Nor’easter Writer’s Convention, a yearly conference where a bunch of no-names, editors, fans, and one or two big-shots came together to talk about the exciting world of punctuation and plot manifestations.  He’d been sitting in one of the back rooms of the convention center, with a head pounding from a night of staring at black font on a white screen and so many grammar errors it’d make his high school teacher cry, and she’d shown up, dropped a 20 oz. cup of coffee in front of him, and asked how to make her story better.

It was somewhere around two months into their working relationship that he'd managed to ask her out. Surprisingly, she’d actually said yes.

And now they were two months into their own efforts at dating while simultaneously maintaining a strictly professional work relationship - though, Ben had long since given up that part, he’d just gotten better at phrasing his criticisms.

“Aww, does the big bad Mr. Solo care for little old me?” She punctuated this with a wink and blown kiss in his direction, an act that proved to be all kinds of incendiary to Ben’s libido and his fraught and worn emotions.

“You’re a bit of an airhead, and you can’t write subtle romance with a damn, but-” Ben sniffed and downed another gulp of his glass of whiskey (what the shit, it was almost empty, when did that happen?) “-honestly? You’re not half-bad.”

Rey slapped his shoulder. “That’s not what I meant, you jackass,” she laughed, which seemed to attract the attention of one too many onlookers. There was a reason women who looked like Rey didn’t usually come out to this kind of bar. And men who acted like Ben gravitated there for another reason: the rest of their life was just too dull to compare.

Even if she was wearing black, the woman _sparkled in the dim light_. Ben would never have let that kind of crap line pass by his desk untouched but it was the only thing that seemed appropriate.

Goddammit. He’d caught a case of the feelings, and this girl - this brilliant, gorgeous, piece of the cosmos of a woman, really - was going to be the death of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thebuildingsnotonfire: This was born from a combination of several drinks, a kink prompt, and my wife’s insistence that this should probably be a full-blown story. Dear anon who initially prompted me for a daddy kink Reylo fic: You’ll have to wait a little bit to get there, but it’s coming. This one is not nearly going to be as long as the Equilibrium, so updates for this one should be coming once a week if not more (depending on workload).
> 
> AttackoftheDarkCurses: Yeah, so, somehow onfire wrote this (drunkenly) intending to somehow turn it toward a daddy kink within one short prompt response and I read it and was like “Uh, okay, you just wrote the beginning of a rom-com, not a prompt request.” So. Here we are. We’ll arrive at daddy kink smut eventually.
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)


	2. Ben Solo and the Overly Descriptive Crap

**Six Months Earlier**

It was reaching that time of the year again - when everyone was both simultaneously miserable and happy at the same time. Winter in the Northeast had a bad habit of drumming up the kind of oscillating emotional mania that literal books had been written about. Ben tried not to let the hanging fey lights or the perpetual knives of frigid wind bother him, but considering his landlord thought newspapers stuffed in the walls counted as proper insulation, he may as well have been pushing a boulder up a hill.

There was some sort of anticipatory happening in the office. Clerks and interns were gossiping over by the water cooler. The temperature that day had been two steps away from freezing the air in his lungs, and so he'd given in to temptation and finally taken a ride on the miserly and miserable public transportation rail that ran through the inner city of Boston. He didn't have the energy to care about anything other than the fact that he needed coffee in him  _right now-_

A tall mug of black liquid with the consistency of sewage dropped in front of him on his desk. In due accordance with Ben's life, the liquid sloshed around and spilled just enough coffee to get on his keyboard.

"Goddammit Hux!" Ben growled, pushing back from the chair and reaching for the roll of paper towels he kept in his drawer. "Don't just go dropping crap on my desk like that."

"Good morning to you too, Solo," Hux said calmly, raising a single eyebrow at Ben's explosion, "You're awfully chipper today."

"I will rip out every page of that obnoxiously oversized dictionary you keep on your desk and shove it down your throat."

Hux's smirk evolved from punch-worthy to definitely-getting-a-face-full-of-fist. "Ooh. Kinky."

" _Hux."_

"Just figured I'd drop off your morning joe. You know, in preparation. Our dear  _Supreme Leader,_ " Hux's tone turned to something not necessarily mocking (because you don't make fun of your chief editor when just anyone could be in earshot), "wants to see you in his office. Something about a review you submitted to the local Star Journal?"

Ben glared at Hux, and then at the coffee. He wondered if the world would ever stop sucking as much had been lately.

"I will end you and your line," Ben vowed.

"You always say the nicest things."

Ben left his coworker slash friend slash eternal enemy with a raised middle finger.

Snoke wasn't happy, of course. The only time Ben had ever seen Snoke anywhere close to even resembling  _content_  had been the time Ben had pointed out that the piece that was going around the office for review was literally just a re-telling of  _The Taming of the Shrew_. Snoke, in his ineffable wisdom said, "That's why it'll sell", and then smiled. Crusty shriveled lips curved into a rickety contortion of his face that, rumor had it, made an intern pass out when he saw it. Ben hadn't flinched, unlike everyone else in the vicinity, but the image had stuck with him, for better or worse.

After getting reamed by the older man for submitting something to one of the local papers  _again,_ Ben trudged back to his desk. On it, laying above a daintily placed kerchief, was a burnt orange envelope of reasonable thickness.

Blinking, Ben went around the partition and sat down at his desk. Most of his work nowadays involved reviewing punctuation and checking to see if someone had forgotten how to spell the word  _obsequious_ and he rarely, if ever, actually got a full manuscript to review.

He placed the enveloped to the side, and opened the email app on his prehistoric computer. There were no notices about being given another chance after his previous debacle.

He read the name on the envelope.

Written in black sharpie that smelled like it could knock out a bear, was a single word.

_Rey._

No last name. Which was odd. Ben tried to think of anyone who went by that name in the writing world, but for all he knew this was a pesudonym. Or a prank. It wouldn't be the first time some dick in the office thought to pull one over the guy who lost the publishing company one of their most potentially lucrative deals.

(It wasn't his fault that  _Starkiller_  was a terrible name for a book series).

With meticulous and methodical precision he opened the envelope flap and pulled out a stack of paper that was at least two inches thick.

"Old school, huh?" he muttered to himself, flipping through the first few pages. It was rare he received anything physical these days.  _First Order Publications_  was pretty stringent about its submission policy.

It didn't even look like there was a title or synopsis page, as was usually the case with these things. Seriously, how did it even get past the interns?

Maybe it was just that good? He scanned the the first paragraph to see if he could make sense of it.

_Long ago, there exsited a secret order of monks._

He opened his mouth and tried to verbalize his thoughts.

This….this was…

_Trash._

For god's sake. They'd misspelled the word "existed".

With a nod and a huff, Ben grabbed his special red pen and decided that even if it was in his best interest to drop it, the perfectionist in him couldn't let it pass by.

_On the oft-forgotten dessert planet, rumbling in the deepest pits of nothing-_

Dear  _lord,_  who taught this Rey person how to write?

With a sniff, Ben crossed out the word "dessert" and ignored the vicious thrill in his veins as he did so.

He spent the rest of the day like that, even working through lunch. On the script. Or draft. Or whatever the hell that atrocity was. It was engaging in a way he'd not expected when he'd started the job at  _First Order Publications_ , but it less in the way of true enjoyment and more in the morbid fascination of a train wreck. Behind every decently phrased sentence, there was a sequence of dialogue that was pretending at everything and achieving nothing. He'd cut out three whole pages from the middle alone, and found that their absence actually made the story  _better_.

It was with an inordinately happy heart and a muttered goodbye, that Ben grabbed the literary disaster and walked out the door. He still had his pen tucked behind his ear, and there was a smudge of ink under his chin, and he was almost stopped by the interns as he passed them by. He saw their eyes widen when they looked at the stack of pages and the envelope in his hands, and the little acne-covered midget had the gall to ask, "Mr. Solo...are you sure?"

But Ben was already halfway out the door, because he had better things to do than answer to the kids who kept putting a piece of tape on the underside of his computer mouse.

He normally wasn't one to be distracted, but Rey's story - once he got past the terrible grammar, the nonexistent flow, and the deliberately (or at least, he hoped they were) annoying characters - he found...that the story still sucked. He ignored everyone in the elevator with him as he mumbled and marked the various pages in his hands.

"Weirdo," he heard one of them - a rotund looking man with a balding pate and weepy eyes - mutter, before side-clipping Ben as he made his way past him, out the elevator.

Head in the script, Ben continued his trek out the building. He would have walked into the revolving door, in fact, were it not for the small roadblock.

Or rather, the small human serving as a roadblock.

She'd run in through the spinning entryway just as he was going to step in, and, because  _of course_  one day at work couldn't pass without  _something_  going wrong, she collided with him. Now, she was maybe half a foot shorter, but all that meant that she'd somehow run into his chest, and effectively dispersed his entire day's work onto the floor.

He stumbled back, and dropped his pen, but didn't fall. The flighty woman though, more or less collapsed backwards, further splaying all his hard work around them.

Ben stood there, stunned, as he tried to grasp what had just happened. A single piece of paper, decorated liberally with red ink, drifted down, finally landing on the floor along with the rest of the pages.

"Sorry about that" the woman apologized, rubbing her face with the flat of her palm, "Here l-let me help."

She started gathering all the papers, mixing them up haphazardly.

Ben stood over her, trying and failing to come up with an appropriate response.

Aware of the very pointed and keen stares from the various people still walking around, trying to leave the building, Ben said nothing, and instead got on all fours and started gathering all the papers himself.

"Watch where you're going," he muttered, head ducking down when he saw her turn to look at him, "People could get hurt if you keep running around like that."

"Running's one of the few things I'm good at," she said, her voice a lilting accented English. Ben jerked, fully aware of the husk behind those words.

Probably out of breath from the fall, he told himself.

He'd avoided looking at her the entire time. Both because he was annoyed and didn't want to scare the woman, and because he didn't want to immediately feel bad about being in her way.

Neither of them said anything else, and before long they had most of the papers gathered. He'd taken surreptitious glances at her the whole time. Brown hair, svelte - maybe a little on the scrawny side if he was being uncharitable, and considering she was the reason his  _entire day's work_  was now laying in various pieces in the first floor lobby, maybe he was.

Finally, after several silent awkward moments as they shuffled around trying to grasp loose papers, some that had gotten stepped on or accidentally scuffed, they stood.

Ben turned to face her and caught her looking at the last piece of paper in her hands. It was covered with red scribbles.

He coughed, trying to get her attention.

She didn't react. Her lips - small, and plump - were forming words as she seemed to read through the page.

He cleared his throat. Loudly.

Her hair was in a bun, his brain couldn't help but notice. A practical, and elegant looking thing. She wore a nice grey coat for the cold and uncaring New England weather, and her cheeks were flushed, probably from the air outside. It was, all things taken into consideration, a good color. The stark, spring blush contrasted well with her naturally tan skin.

His rational side finally kicked in.  _Stop being a creep and get that paper back_.

Chagrined, he stepped in close and extended his hand. "Excuse me," he mumbled, feeling the eyes of his still present coworkers (seriously, did they not have lives?), "I need that."

Her hazel eyes flicked up from the paper. "Oh!" she said, seeming to realize what she was talking about. Humor crept into her face, and Ben had to remind himself to  _breathe._  "Sorry about that, I just got caught up reading your work."

Ben looked down at the ground, unable to face this sudden and utterly fascinating burst of sunlight from the woman in front of him. His ears - always the first to turn red - seemed to steam as she looked up and handed him the last piece of paper. "S'not mine," he mumbled, to the side, and a little low, "I'm just an editor."

Despite his phrasing he also really didn't want to attach his name to the overly descriptive piece of crap in his hands. He still had  _some_  dignity, at least.

"I know," she said, winking and seeming to delight in some private joke, "You do good work."

There was a huff of laughter around them, and Ben felt the press of every stare in the area. "Excuse me," he muttered as he bundled the papers up, uncaring of order, and placed them in the orange envelope they'd appeared in, "I...I have to go."

He tucked the envelope under his arm, and ducked his head.

"Oi! Hey!" she called after him, "What's your name?"

Ben replied something low and unintelligible back.

"What was that?"

He turned, and faced her. His eyes were immediately drawn to the wide, cheeky smile she was wearing, like she knew something he didn't. He averted his eyes, lest they blind themselves in the face of this sudden and unrelenting cheeriness.

"I'm Ben."

"Ben what?" There was a curiosity there that did not seem appropriate for someone he'd just run into.

His mouth went dry. "Just- just Ben."

He struggled with the decision to give his last name. But because his sense of dramatic timing was off, and because he was getting really sick of being the center of attention  _again_ , he just turned on his heel and walked out into the bitter and bleak Boston weather.

At least that was familiar.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thebuildingsnotonfire: I have no idea how publishing works, which is amusing because I do want to publish something. One day. Eventually. If there are any actual people in the publishing industry reading this, just take comfort that anything wrong is all invention on my part. Also, just to remind y'all.
> 
> Attack: I'm basically just here for editing and shy, adorable Ben.
> 
> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)


	3. Ben Solo and the Coffee Angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of this fic is now written out and uh. We don't really have much of an excuse for the massive delay between chapters 2 and 3. Mostly, we focused heavily on Equilibrium and this fic fell to the wayside. I think we'll be posting every day (or every other day) until it's wrapped up.

The noise Ben's forehead made as it hit the wooden table would have reminded a younger, smarter, version of him of the dullards in suits walking around looking like they'd stopped living years ago. As it was, the sound was both painful and familiar, seeing as how he'd thunked it against the surface at least half a dozen times the past two days.

No one from his agency actually liked coming out to help with this stupid thing. The Nor'easter Writers' Convention was small, in the grand scheme of things, and it was usually dominated by the abundance of college kids who lived in the city and the towns in the outskirts. Most people's experiences here were limited to stretching the limits of a single Twitter post, or angry internet debates on Reddit. Ben could count on one hand the number of actual success stories he'd seen attributed to this event in his seven years at the agency and still have most of his fingers left over.

It was usually something organized by one of the innumerable breeds of suit and tweed and brandy that still somehow existed long past their fossilization date. The convention was a small pet project amongst the entrenched publishers and journal writers of the area, but no one worth anything actually attended it for two reasons.

The first was because Boston was a miserable place in early March; right on the cusp of Spring, it was stuck in that ugly transitional phase of either cold and wet with none of the faux cheer from the holiday season to help tide a person's soul over.

The second reason was because attending usually meant having to deal with  _First Order Publications._  They were one of the bigger publishing houses, having connections to all manners of corners and crevices of the writing industry, but very few people signed on with them again once their contract expired, citing reasons that usually involved something about bleeding their writing dry.

Snoke liked to scope out the attendees of the event every year under the guise of sending his workers and editors out to help. It was every bit as insidious as it sounded, and anyone unfortunate enough to be caught by the man's claws usually found their enthusiasm sucked dry by the end of their association.

That was their way of things. Sign an author, bleed them dry, toss them out once they stopped making money.

Ben should know. He was the same way. Long ago, he'd thought he'd be able to thrive in that environment, only to realize that moral compunctions about the parasitic practices weren't well regarded in the ranks of editors and lawyers that  _First Order Publications_ housed.

Someone plonked something in front of him, snapping him from his thoughts, and Ben, face still touching the surface of the table, didn't even bother hiding his wince. Anyone who knew anything about him knew not to mess with him when he'd just gotten done dealing with the writer's workshop, answering all the vague questions from aspiring writers on what would and wouldn't get touched by a publishing house.

"...What do you want?" Ben said at last, lifting his head up to look at whoever this intruder was.

A young face stared back at him, smiling cheekily. She held a capped paper coffee cup up by its sleeve daintily and was halfway to bringing the open lid to her lips. On the table in front of him, something deliciously sinful and steaming and hot wafted over to him and invaded his scent receptors. Something dark and roasted and natural, exactly as pretentious as Ben preferred his coffee.

"Mr. Solo?" asked the girl. A coffee angel. That's what she was. He had to stop himself from automatically reaching for the spare cup and just chugging the whole thing down, because while an asshole he might be (Ben held no illusion about that), he still had  _some_  manners.

"Who wants to know?"

The girl - correction,  _woman_  - laughed. It was a tinkly soft sound, of someone who know more than the other. While any other situation it would have ticked him off, Ben was running on nine hours of sleep over the span of three days, and so instead of finding it annoying (okay, maybe a little) he also found the honest, innocent laughter refreshing.

"You don't remember me, do you?" the coffee angel said.

Ben frowned, racking his memory for the divine sight of this herald of caffeinated deliverance but could only conjure up vague feelings of annoyance and embarrassment, which was his standard behavior in front of attractive women.

"Are you part of the convention staff?" Ben hazarded a guess. Then he thought of something far worse and paled. "Wait, you're not an attendee are you? Because you can't be back here if so, and if you think getting me a coffee is going to get you an in with  _First Order Publications_ -"

She laughed some more, which stopped him dead in his tracks. Most people didn't feel comfortable interrupting a six foot three man's rant, let alone with laughter.

"I'm not here as part of the convention," the mystery woman said. "Well, I guess I am. Not as an attendant or staff though. I'm here as a guest."

Ben looked her up and down, noting the plain tan scarf and hair buns that had a few stray strands sticking off to the sides. A raggedy backpack lay on the floor beside her, looking like it once served as something's home and that it resented being used for its original purpose. Her skin was fair, with a healthy flush to it, but that could easily be attributed to the cold outside and the coffee instead of any makeup.

"Your manuscript isn't currently in limbo is it? Because I can tell you that if you want a timeline on that, you're barking up the wrong tree." A seasonally appropriate sardonic smile graced his face. "If you'd have just asked anyone you'd know that I'm no longer Snoke's golden child."

Miss Coffee Angel looked at him askance, before she finally said, "You're real full of yourself aren't you?"

The coffee, which he'd been so carefully sipping following his sarcastic admonition, suddenly was going down the wrong pipe. He sat up, pounding his chest painfully, spilling some of the liquid on his planned itinerary. "Fundamentals of Exposition" turned into a blurry mess, and the ink denoting his three o' clock "Faulty Female Characters and the Failure of Romance" blocks that he was supposed to oversee

"I- uh-" he coughed some more, wincing, and met her eyes once he'd finally returned to his non-choking-to-death state. "Excuse me?"

Hazel eyes shined in familiar way, but it was familiar in the same way a vague sense of deja vu was occasionally. "You truly don't know who I am?"

Which begged the question,  _should he?_

Ben considered it for a moment while she stared, wondering how terribly he was about to offend the beautiful woman in front of him who'd been kind enough to bring him coffee, apparently without even having much of a motive.

"I'm sorry," he said lamely, with a tired shrug. "I don't. Should I?"

Her lips curled into an amused smile, and she shook her head slightly. Without any explanation, she set her coffee down, leaned down and opened her backpack, pulling out what almost seemed like a ream of paper. Maybe not quite a ream, but almost, and he could see red marks and sticky-notes marking most of the pages as the bundle was hefted onto the table in front of him.

"Maybe this will ring a bell?" she suggested, her lilted accent sounding almost gleeful at the idea.

With narrowed eyes and a  _lot_  of curiosity, he sipped at his coffee and studied the stack in front of him, flipping through pages. "I hope you understand we have channels for submitting-"

The words died in his throat as he recognized his own handwriting. The first comment he came across wasn't even a polite one.

_Learn to spell. I'd be happy to send you a dictionary if you haven't yet figured out the internet._

Ben cringed, letting his eyes slowly trail up to meet hers.

"You wrote this?"

 _This pile of garbage_ , he wanted to say.

She nodded. Oh, gods, she'd nodded. Then she pursed her lips, and she didn't  _seem_  angry, but that was unbelievable since he'd almost literally ripped apart her would-be book.

"Perhaps you're more familiar with my pen name," she said politely, grinning as though she knew some sort of secret-

That's when it hit him, where he should have remembered her from. He'd met her the very day he'd received her manuscript, the one from a person named Rey (if he remembered correctly), and she'd knocked into him in the lobby, sending papers flying.

"I publish under the name  _Kira Ren_."

He almost dropped his coffee. He-

Fuck.

 _Everyone_  knew that name. He'd have had to be like one of the monks she'd written about to have avoided hearing that name. Maybe he hadn't read her works, but he  _knew_  of them. It was hard to avoid them when he worked in publishing and they were constantly on the New York Times Best Sellers List.

Kira Ren's were the sort of books that garnered staggering amounts of pre-orders and  _still_ had people waiting at midnight releases. They were the sort of books people were calling  _Harry Potter, but better and for adults_. They were books that had people in the news talking about.

He stared at her over his coffee, barely blinking. Barely breathing.

The realization sunk into him then. He'd essentially ripped apart Kira Ren's next book, and Snoke was going to fire him. Fire him and then promptly destroy his career without even needing to lie about the unbelievably stupid thing he'd done.

She spoke up before he had the chance to, "I believe Luke Skywalker's your uncle?" Ben nodded numbly, and she smiled. "He was one of my professors, years back. Recently I contacted him for advice, and he referred me to you."

"To... _me?_ "

Ben was simply echoing her words now. He couldn't figure how else to process and respond, and this seemed like the next best option.

"Yes," she confirmed, apparently not noticing how rigid he'd gone. She sighed and explained, "To be a bit candid, I'm not happy with my current editor, who seems content to tell me my writing is constantly perfect. Even I know my work isn't as good as it could be, and I need someone to call out my errors and bad habits. I sent this-" she gestured to the manuscript, "-to you because your uncle suggested you'd be willing to edit it heavily. That's exactly what I need."

After a moment of struggling to process, Ben lifted the coffee and downed it all at once, relishing in the burn of it. He set down the empty cup and winced, then cleared his throat.

"Let me get this straight," he said carefully. "You, one of the most well-known authors of your generation, want  _me_  to edit your work? And you're not offended that I left so many notes and edits?"

"No, not offended at all," she replied quickly. "It's exactly what I want. And yes, I want you editing my work. I've read your notes and you've made many good points. I don't agree with everything mind you but...would you consider helping me?"

Would he  _consider_  helping with a book that, as terrible as it currently was, would easily be one of the most well known books he'd ever edit?

Would he  _consider_  helping the beautiful woman he'd barely been able to speak to, last they met?

...except, it wasn't quite that easy, was it?

If he became her editor, that meant she'd have ties to  _First Order Publications_  and that-

Well.

Simply put, it would destroy her. Sure, she'd end up with plenty of cash and with her name everywhere but Snoke would see to it that she'd been sucked dry of anything that made her... _her_. Her spark, her spirit.

He'd seen it happen before and he wanted no part in it.

"No," he said firmly, staring rigidly down at the table. He couldn't bear to see the disappointment on her face - she wouldn't understand, and he didn't need her to. "No, I can't help you. My uncle was wrong to send you my way."

What Luke was thinking, Ben had no idea. The man was a bit of a kook nowadays, but Ben knew that as hermetic or as much of a maverick as he had become, Luke wasn't stupid, and sending anyone with potential Ben's way was nothing short of it. Ben had enough trouble dealing with keeping his principles while working with Snoke, and after the fiasco where he drove off Starkiller Chronicle's author for their own sake, he didn't want to add any more temptation to that list. He didn't want to have to choose between his morality and his job again.

There was a brief silence, just long enough for him to think  _maybe_  she'd gotten annoyed and walked off, but no, there she was, glancing down at him with a curious, amused half-smile. "I'm not taking no for an answer," she shrugged. "I can be very persistent. Can you at least tell me why not before I start working on convincing you?"

"No, and you won't change my mind."

The smile she sent him was both challenging and amused. Coincidentally, a surge of warmth shot through him at the sight of it. That was probably the coffee.

Almost certainly the coffee.

Rey hummed. "We'll see."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Onfire's Twitter](https://twitter.com/thebuildingsno1)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


	4. Ben Solo and the Sort-Of Stalker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Planning to post daily (or every other day) until this one is wrapped up!

It was a terrible idea. Truly, and without a doubt one of her worst plans, and Finn was still trying to dissuade her, even after attempting to do so for almost an hour the day before-

_("Why, Rey? Why this guy? Just find a new editor!")_

-and now he was staring her down over coffee, waiting hopefully for her to admit he was right, and that she'd give up.

Rey planned to do neither of those things.

He was probably right. She wasn't so self-deluded to think her friend didn't ever bring up a good point, but she'd never let someone else being right stop her from doing what needed to be done.

"Peanut," he started in a crisp accent that matched hers, "you know I love you, and that I'll always support you. Poe and I both will, but please. Be reasonable. This poor guy is probably convinced you're going to try and murder him next. You have to admit, the daily emails and phone calls were bad enough, but this is crossing a line. It's been a  _month_. He clearly doesn't want to work with you."

She scoffed, sipping at her coffee and cringing slightly at the overly sweet taste. In true, traditionally cliche fashion, they were meeting in one of the literal hundreds of coffee shops in the Boston area. The day was slow and lazy, and the sofa she sat on sank in just the right way for maximum comfort, threatening to swallow her whole. She hated it.

"I'm simply giving him a chance to reconsider," she said casually. "He's a fantastic editor, and if the notes he left on his first read-through are any indication, this book would be much better off with his help."

"I know," Finn groaned. "I know, you've said that, but  _Rey_  you aren't 'giving him a chance to reconsider' - let's call a spade a spade, yeah?"

She pointedly did not meet his eyes, focusing on the ugly fruit bowl painting hanging from the exposed brick wall in front of them. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

Now it was  _his_  turn to scoff. "Oh, are we pretending you aren't planning to show up to the guy's Easter Dinner? With his  _family,_ so you can ask him in person? Maybe try and get his family to help you guilt him into it?"

"I'm not sure I'd quite put it like that," she winced.

(He was right, though. It was an apt summary of her plans.)

While Finn raised an eyebrow and shot her a look of disbelief, she played innocent and explained, "His uncle invites me every year and I've finally decided to take Luke up on his offer. If I  _happen_  to bump into his nephew while I'm there…" With a slight shrug, she added, "Well, I suppose it'll be a happy coincidence."

"I have no chance of talking you out of this, do I?"

"You have better odds of getting struck by lightning while trying to give birth to octuplets."

Hmmmm, that was a good line. Maybe she should use that in her next draft and see what Mister Grump thought of that?

"I don't even have the necessary parts for that!" Finn hissed quietly, leaning in closer over the table that separated them.

Rey snorted, nodding. "That's my point."

* * *

Not three hours later she was dressed in a lovely dark green wrap dress - her favorite one, with fluttery butterfly sleeves and a neckline that came down in a tasteful, yet flattering  _v_  - standing outside the federal-style doorway of an exquisite ivy-covered brick-faced brownstone - one of the ones in Beacon Hill. Rey hadn't been a Boston resident for long, but even she knew the location guaranteed the building she stood in front of was worth millions.

Many, many millions. At least ten of them, probably.

Of course, her books had afforded her a shockingly decent income but the little orphan girl in her still preferred the idea of storing her money away, trusting most of it to someone who knew their way around phrases such as  _high-yield_  and  _stable-value funds_. As such, she'd purchased a small condo in the Chestnut Hill area, just a few stops on the T away from Boston proper and so far she'd been quite happy.

Though, the longer she stared at the building in front of her, with its stark white sills and ebony shutters standing out against the classic brick, the more she wondered whether or not her accountant would approve of such a decision. Wasn't property supposed to be an excellent investment?

She stopped, realizing the kinds of thoughts she was having and she took a moment to appreciate the difference between her past and present self. As much as she preferred the simpler things in life, a lifetime of living ascetically had its advantages, there was no denying that she liked to take advantage of her newfound wealth. Her current attire was just one of the benefits of striking lucky.

But luck wouldn't carry her far. She needed someone willing to call her out on her flaws, and her old teacher and his nephew had been two of the few people willing to do that.

Her eyes traced over the building and the door in front of her, and her eyes finally landed on an elaborate brass door knocker-

Oh.  _Oh_ , she hadn't even knocked yet, had she? No, she was creepily standing outside their front door. Excellent. Rey felt blood rush to her cheeks, spent a moment being thankful there were no witnesses were around, and reached up, rapping on the door.

It opened to a familiar face not a moment later as Luke Skywalker, her former college professor, greeted her with a huge smile. "Rey! I'd almost given up hope that you'd join us one of these years," he laughed, "I was happy to hear from you! Come on in! I've got some people to introduce you to."

For a moment she couldn't help but wonder if he'd be quite so happy to have her there if he knew she planned to corner his nephew and ask - no,  _beg_  - for his help.

Mm, probably. Luke seemed like the type to find that more funny than concerning.

And so, while matching his smile with one of her own, Rey stepped inside.

* * *

A ham was cooking in the oven, its smell wafting into the room and combining with all the smells of the casseroles and sides that had already been prepared. The food was, perhaps, the only tolerable part of any Solo-Organa-Skywalker family holiday, and it was probably the only reason he was there and not at home, wearing sweatpants and waiting on a pizza delivery.

(Nevermind that holiday-delivered food always tasted as though it had been nuked at least thrice over.)

But then, because things  _had_  to go to shit at some point, Ben dropped the potato masher he'd been using as he caught a glimpse of his uncle's guest. She'd walked into the kitchen, following behind Luke and looking on edge.

Maybe if she hadn't been harassing him for the last month he would have paid more attention to the dress she wore and how it flattered both her figure and her eyes, but he was too caught off-guard to think much of it.

"I've been meaning to introduce you two!" Luke -  _fucking Luke_  - said cheerily, grinning a stupid oblivious smile at him. "Rey," he nodded to the woman Ben was glowering at, "this is my nephew, Ben, the editor I suggested you get in touch with." With a curious glance, he asked, "Ben, where'd your parents go? I'd like to introduce Rey."

He gritted his teeth. How  _dare_  she show up after he'd made it clear that he had no intention of working with her? Not to mention that he had no idea how she'd gotten his email and number (now he realized that was likely Luke's doing) - she'd been bothering him at least once a day, and he'd been doing his best to answer each one politely, because as much as she said she needed him, the woman could effectively ruin his career if she'd felt so inclined and slighted.

But some things went too far, and showing up at his family's place was  _too far_.

Tightening his lips in a thin, unwelcoming line, he muttered, "They're upstairs. Should be down in a minute."

Luke was somehow blind to his reaction. "Well, you two get to know each other. I'll find some wine."

Then, because  _of course_  today had to be worse than the usual annoying family dinner, Luke left the room in search of wine (something Ben would probably need a lot of very soon), and he abandoned the two of them.

Silence stretched between the two of them. It gave Ben enough time to vent all the swears that had ventured into his stream of consciousness without actually verbalizing them. Just as well, he didn't anyone coming down to find him cussing out Luke's guest for no obvious reason.

Rey cleared her throat, saying casually, "Could we possibly talk?"

"About what?" he snapped. "The fact that you've now graduated from harassment to  _stalking?_  Or the fact that my answer hasn't changed?"

She went rigid at his words, and the once-friendly smile on her face dropped and was promptly replaced with wide eyes and a mouth open in surprise. "I- I would  _never_  stalk someone. That's not-"

"That's exactly what you're doing. You couldn't take no for an answer and you've now decided to show up at my family's residence after harrassing me daily for a month. Please," he said dryly, "explain to me how that isn't stalking. If I'd been doing this to you, you would have called the police already. I'm right, aren't I?"

Her cheeks flushed red, and she went quiet, making firm eye contact with the floor.

Before either of them had another chance to say anything, Luke burst back in with a large bottle of some sort of wine (Ben didn't particularly care what kind it was at this point), and bustled around the kitchen in search of a few glasses, blissfully unaware of what he'd missed. The man was brilliant - Ben had plenty of fond memories of debates and good-natured arguments with him to prove it, but he was also obtuse when it came to social interactions.

Ben hadn't taken his eyes off the woman who was now biting at her lip, anxiously digging her nails into her arms as she had them crossed over her chest.

Hm. Maybe she really hadn't realized how weirdly inappropriate it was to show up there. Hazel eyes lifted to his, and while Luke had his back turned, she mouthed  _I'm sorry._

He only increased his glare.

She swallowed, nodded, seeming genuinely bothered by the point he'd made, and she said softly, "Uh, Luke, I'm afraid something's come up. I think-"

"Oh, you're not leaving are you?" his uncle asked, sounding suddenly disappointed. "But you just got here! You and Ben haven't even had time to chat about your new book."

"That's okay," she said, quickly and quietly. Glancing over to him, she added, "Maybe that's for the best." Offering his uncle a bit of a broken smile, she lied, "It's just a small emergency at home. Nothing too awful, but I've got to get back. Thanks for inviting me...maybe things will work out next year."

Luke frowned and replied with a crestfallen tone, "Oh. Well, let's not go another four years without seeing each other, okay?"

"Sure," Rey nodded, backing closer and closer to the door. "Thanks again."

And then she left, and Ben was left blinking in the direction of the door she'd gone through, surprised things had gone so easily. It was as though she truly hadn't realized how things had seemed from his perspective.

"Poor kid," his uncle sighed, leaning against the counter Ben still stood next to. "I wish she would have stayed. It's got to be tough during holidays."

Despite himself, Ben couldn't help but ask, "What do you mean?"

With a shrug, Luke explained, "Rey doesn't really have family. Maybe a few friends, but no family to speak of. I started inviting her to dinners like this once she stopped being my student...I remember asking her one day during office hours what her plans for a holiday weekend were and she let it slip that she'd be alone. I was hoping she'd take me up on the offer eventually. It's a pity she had to leave - you and your parents would have loved her."

Ah, that was guilt bubbling up in him. Guilt he probably shouldn't feel because she  _had_  crossed a line, but…

Oh, fuck it. She'd crossed a line, certainly, but she seemed relatively harmless.

"Let me see if I can convince her to stay," he muttered, abandoning the would-be mashed potatoes as he walked around his uncle, rushing out of his parent's brownstone.

He caught sight of her less than half a block away, thankful for the fact that he'd guessed correctly when choosing to start speed-walking in the direction of the closest green-line stop. Not thinking as clearly as he could have, he gently grabbed her arm rather than saying her name, and she spun around looking terrified.

"It's okay," he said quickly, letting go of her arm. "I only want to talk, and invite you back if you'd like. I think we've gotten off to a bad start."

Rey blinked up at him, and after a moment, said quietly, "I really am sorry. I didn't understand why you wouldn't be willing to work with me and," she sighed, "And I'm sorry. Obviously my actions have been completely unacceptable. I realize that now. You were right. If the roles were reversed I wouldn't have been willing to hear you out."

She admitted, "I was -  _am_  - desperate to get some help with this book and the way Luke talked made it seem like you'd be the perfect person to work with…" Rey looked up at him, and her shoulders dropped. "Still," she murmured, "That's no excuse. I didn't realize how far I'd stepped over the line."

Hesitating, he worked his lips together and came to a decision. There wasn't much point in lying to her. "It wasn't that I didn't want to help," he said truthfully. "I didn't want you involved with First Order Publications." Ben huffed, staring down at the sidewalk. "My job might pay the bills but you have  _no_  idea how many writers I've seen get sucked in and eaten up by them. As far as I've heard, your career has a...well, a bright future," he said lamely. "I didn't want to be the reason it went in a direction you weren't happy with."

"Oh."

When he met her eyes, she had the slightest hint of a relieved smile.

"That was...very kind of you," she mumbled. With a dry laugh, she muttered to herself, "And you got harassed and stalked for your kindness. No wonder you don't want to work with me." Shaking her head, she took another look up at him. "For the record, I already have a publishing house I work with and I have no intention of ending my contract with them. I only wanted to hire you in your spare time to help me get this draft to a workable spot."

Oh.  _Oh_ , they'd both fucked up, hadn't they?

"I'll- uh...go," Rey said quietly, turning toward the t-stop. "I won't bother you again, I promise."

But the thing was, he  _had_  wanted to work with her. That manuscript had been a disaster but he'd enjoyed getting his hands on it and adjusting bits here and there, and the idea of helping an author like  _Kira Ren_  shape her newest novel…

"Wait!"

Rey stopped a dozen or so feet from him and turned back curiously, waiting for him to say something.

"I'll make you a deal," he said quickly, wondering if he had any idea what he was doing. "Come back to dinner and keep the conversation on you and your books so my family stops asking me what I'm doing with my life. Then we can get coffee and come to a working agreement."

Her mouth fell open.

"You're telling me you'd still be willing to work with me? A- And all I have to do is distract your family over dinner?"

"And pay me for my time when I edit." He was a professional, not a saint.

Rey let out a soft laugh. "Well, yes, I assumed that was part of it."

They stood there for a moment, awkwardly silent as they considered each other and the odd situation they'd both landed themselves in.

"So…" Ben asked, breaking the silence, "Are you coming back with me?"

She took a deep breath, and met him with a smile. A beautiful, bright, infectious smile that he couldn't help but return. Ben's breath hitched as she nodded up at him with those stupidly gorgeous hazel eyes, and said softly, "Lead the way, Mr. Solo."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Onfire's Twitter](https://twitter.com/thebuildingsno1)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


	5. Ben Solo and the Not Dating

She'd always preferred mornings. Possibly because, since moving to the Boston area, she made a habit of waking up early each day and making her way to a tiny little bakery, maybe a block from her condo. Almost always the first in line, Rey would start her days with fresh coffee (often so fresh she had to wait for it to be brewed) and a delicate, flaky scone with creamy butter.

Things had changed, though, in the past two months. Mornings were no longer her favorite - now, her most-anticipated regular occurrence was lunchtime on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when she'd travel further into the city and meet Ben in the Boston Commons, a large park right next to the green line. He'd claimed it was close enough to work to be convenient, and far enough away so that he wouldn't risk them running into any of his coworkers.

She still didn't wholly understand his concerns regarding his workplace knowing about him working for her, but she was too glad to have someone who wouldn't kiss her ass to care. Her friends, few as they were, were all amazing people, but both Finn and Rose read more scientific journals than fiction and the less said about Poe's taste in media the better. The three of them were very good at giving honest opinions but when it came down to analyzing stories, they were hopeless.

Chilly April weather had given way to the warming temperatures of May **,** and then the comfortably lazy afternoons of June. They tended to eat whatever offerings the food trucks around Boston Commons had, claiming a bench while they chatted about whichever chapter or story facet Ben was working through.

He was impressively thorough, offering far more than the grammatical corrections she desperately needed (he seemed particularly amused by her chaotic use of punctuation). Most of his focus was on the story as a whole, and after two months they'd managed one run-through to clean things up, and they'd started working back through story revisions on her first act. The process was slow and perhaps a bit arduous and occasionally frustrating but-

His eyes helped.

Rey swallowed the bite of gourmet grilled cheese (a  _Green Muenster_ , the name a pun related to Fenway Park, if she wasn't mistaken), and subtly looked over at him as he studied the pages in his lap. He seemed to prefer leaving written notes on a paper copy of whichever chapter they were working on and at first it had seemed considerably more  _old school_  than she'd ever expected…but then she'd gotten a glimpse of his handwriting.

She hadn't complained after that, and at some point she'd started catching herself inspecting him more closely than her writing and the changes he was suggesting she make.

Long lashes framed brown eyes that -

No, not just brown. She was an author, she could certainly do better than  _brown_. Never mind what he said about brevity being the soul of wit. Some things deserved to be waxed on loquaciously about.

They were the brown of a sweet chocolate, or possibly, the earthy brown of soil after a rainstorm. Warm, deep, and so full of raw emotion he could be read as easily as a book or a newspaper. Umber and mahogany, and in some places a lighter caramel, all blending together to create the first and so far only pair of eyes she couldn't stop thinking of. Thinking of, and dreaming of, and-

"-ove this description closer to the start, and I think-"

Oh, he was talking.

Wasn't much point in it when she was too busy learning and memorizing the shape of his lips. Almost a shade of coral, thick like he'd just been kissed passionately, and with a gulp, she was reminded of how long it had been since she'd kissed anyone.

Just as she felt a warm blush creep up on her, Ben looked over, lips wrapped around a pen (a delicious habit of his that she'd observed and enjoyed seeing), and she had to look away so he didn't realize how closely she'd been staring.

"What do you think?" he asked, after removing the pen. "If you keep this section where it is, you should at least pare it down. If you move it, it might not seen so lengthy and out of place." Then he hummed, "Well, maybe you should still take out a sentence or two. Here, maybe this one-"

Was it absolutely terrible of her to be so taken with a man whose time she was paying for?

Probably, yes. That was likely an ethical issue of some sort.

Rey took a large, frustrated bite of her grilled cheese and found she could barely stomach it, and tried to focus on what he was suggesting.

As usual, it was a great point he was making. There had only been  _maybe_  a half dozen changes he'd recommended that she hadn't taken him up on and Ben had made such an impact that she felt that she wasn't paying him anywhere near enough. She was paying his asking price, but double that wouldn't have been enough.

It was an odd situation she found herself in. Ben was truly helping her and they'd formed a successful working relationship in a short time despite their questionable start, and she wanted to foster that out of respect for him and his position, and his skill.

Alternatively, she'd never found herself so hopelessly attracted to someone. Mind  _and_  body, because Ben Solo couldn't possibly  _just_  be attractive. No, the universe was more cruel than that. He couldn't simply be an attractive man she could appreciate from a distance and then forget about because he had a detestable personality.

Instead, he was quiet, occasionally a little off-putting (but somehow never in a way she actually minded), considerate (within a week he'd taken note of her coffee order and had started greeting her with it), shockingly well-read (she supposed that made sense given his career choice), and oddly charming, though maybe not in the conventional way.

_Oh_ , and that smile.

It was rare, but so worth the wait each and every time, even if it was one of those little half-smiles he was in the habit of giving.

"-verything okay?"

Rey blinked at him, realizing a tad too late that this time he'd caught her staring. At his lips, no less.

A sweet, flattering blush rose on his cheeks, and he gave her one of those shy smiles she'd only seen a few times now. Clearing his throat, he asked again, this time quietly in that deep authoritative voice, "Is everything okay, Rey?"

Nodding blankly, she looked up and held his gaze, murmuring, "Very okay, Mr. Solo."

She didn't miss the way he swallowed at that, nor the way his eyes darkened and focused in on her lips. After a moment they simultaneously cleared their throats and looked away from each other.

"Uh, so...about  _this_  line-"

* * *

Ben slumped in his chair, simultaneously feeling like he could walk on air after spending his lunch break with  _her_ , and thoroughly annoyed that he wouldn't see her again until Tuesday, a solid five days away.

After she'd made all the initial changes he'd marked during his first read-through - the one he'd done before realizing who she was - the manuscript was better. Not as good as it could be, but there was a marked improvement. Now they were going through, chapter by chapter, restructuring and reworking as needed.

Considering who Rey was, he'd asked why she didn't just go with her previous editor, but she'd confirmed her previous story - she knew the manuscript needed more adjustments than her current brown-nosing editor would give. She'd been emailing with Luke, complaining about the situation, and he'd come up with the absolutely  _brilliant_ idea of dropping mailing the first manuscript to Ben's office...all without offering any context.

Not to say that the overgrown troll hadn't actually been right on the money, but Ben was still a little surly about that set of contrivances. Not surly with Rey, though. Not at all.

In truth, was possible he'd been dragging his feet, insisting on pouring more time into helping her edit than was absolutely necessary, and it had nothing to do with the fact that she was paying him by the hour.

At this point he'd do it for free.

Rey was a breath of fresh air - cliche be damned, because he could think of no other way to properly phrase just what she added to his Tuesdays and Thursdays. Originally he'd been concerned that she'd be annoyed by further critiques and suggestions. Much to his surprise, it seemed that she thrived on them, carefully considering each and every note he made. She even agreed with most of them, and others tended to prompt passionate discussions, after which they usually reached an accord.

And fuck, she was beautiful. He wasn't above admitting that being around her could be dizzying.

Beautiful, brilliantly creative, beyond kind, and a joy to spend time with, even if they'd had a strange and uncomfortable start. For some reason she'd taken to calling him  _Mr. Solo_  no matter how many times he'd told her it was just  _Ben_ , and every time she addressed him in that lilted accent of hers a bit a thrill shot down his spine.

He groaned, running a hand through his hair as he contemplated heading to a bar directly after work. For some terribly aggravating reason he had to keep reminding himself that these twice-a-week meetings were  _not_  dates and he absolutely should  _not_  consider wiping gently at the corner of her mouth whenever she had something there, nor should he get it in his head that she might be attracted to him.

Sure, he'd noticed her notice him. It was hard not to notice that since she was anything but subtle but Ben knew he was a little odd-looking. Strange proportions and angles that women like Rey generally weren't very interested in. He tried to keep a healthy lifestyle because living in Boston was enough of a drain on his mental acuity and emotional health that he didn't need his own body working against him, but no one had ever defined him as conventionally attractive.

"Solo! My office!"

Ben jerked up and out of his seat and looked out over the wall of his cubicle, seeing Snoke, of all people, looking in his direction and wearing an unfamiliar expression. It took Ben a moment to register what it was.

Snoke was  _smiling_. It was a small, pitiless thing that promised everything one could ever want, assuming one were willing to pay the right price.

It gave him chills, but Ben still walked out of his cubicle and down the row toward his boss's office, struggling to keep the cringe off his features as Snoke closed the door behind him and gestured to one of the chairs in front of his glass-topped desk.

His office was cold. Not in the way of temperature - rather, it was sterile, devoid of anything personal or any evidence that it was the office of a human and not simply the storage location of something from the outer reaches of reality. Inhuman, professional, and probably someone who looked at the obituary section in a newspaper like it were a comic strip, Snoke was a wretched, living proof that you didn't need morals to be successful - you only needed willpower, stubbornness, and a pure, unadulterated sense of quality.

He was the best friend for someone looking to get a foot in  _First Order Publications._  Conveniently, he was also the best man to kick someone out.

Ben did his absolute best to avoid him whenever possible.

"I hear you've made a new friend," the man said politely, taking a seat across from Ben. His head tilted just a few degrees to the side, and Ben could have sworn he felt the man's stare scrape the top layer of his skin off, as if to inspect the workings underneath for any malfeasance. "A very  _talented_  friend."

Ben hesitated. It was clear that his boss was speaking of Rey and confirming they were working together was probably a terrible idea. He worried at his bottom lip briefly, and lied, "I'm not sure what you mean, sir."

Snoke's eyes narrowed in on him. "Kira Ren? Though, I assume you've seen past the nom de plume by now - I believe her name is Rey Johnson?" His smile returned and Ben almost wished it hadn't. Ben had seen horror movies with less promise of pain packed into them than in that smile. "I'd like you to offer her a meeting with me. She's quite a talented author, and word is that she's currently looking for a new publishing house after her last one failed to properly... _appreciate_  her talents."

He said the word 'appreciate'. It sounded suspiciously like 'exsanguinate'.

"I'd like to discuss her work and her possible future with  _First Order Publications."_

Shit. Shit shit  _shit_. This was exactly what he'd been trying to avoid. He wasn't entirely sure how his boss had found out but he should have expected it. Things had been going far too well.

"Ah, Rey, right, uh-" he stammered.

Snoke couldn't know they were working on her new book. He couldn't know.

Swallowing, Ben continued, "-my friend, Rey? We don't really discuss business, or her writing…she's uhm. A former student of my Uncle's, and I don't know her very well."

With any luck, that would be enough. No doubt, Snoke would still want to meet her, but at least if he claimed to only be Rey's friend, he wouldn't get fired for working with her in his own time. It was unlikely he could actually be fired for that exactly, but Snoke was nothing if not petty and he had a feeling the man would find some other reason to let him go.

"How nice," his boss hummed, drumming his fingers on the desk on front of him. "Well, I believe it would be in your friend's best interest to meet with me. Why don't you see about arranging a meeting? I think your friend would be very happy here."

Ben gripped his own knee, plastering on a smile and nodded. "Of course, sir. I'll see what I can do."

He rushed back to his cubicle as soon as Snoke dismissed him, thinking every swear in the book, and he dropped back into his rolling chair, cursing himself and his agreeing to work with her. Hopefully if he claimed she was too busy, Snoke would let it go, or maybe-

An idea came to him, and he hummed, considering it. Simply avoiding the problem likely wouldn't do anything so...perhaps there was another option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Onfire's Twitter](https://twitter.com/thebuildingsno1)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


	6. Ben Solo and the Lack of Professionalism

She hadn't expected him to change their routine, but it was a welcome change - one that made her curious, but she hardly planned to complain. According to Ben, his boss had found out about their meetings, but he'd managed to circumvent the issue by claiming they were simply friends meeting for casual lunches rather than...well, she supposed they were coworkers of some sort.

Now, in place of lunches twice a week, Rey had suggested he meet her a few nights a week at her condo after work. For his trouble (the green line was a hassle at the best of times), she'd offered to cook or buy them dinner.

This was the first night he'd be joining her, and for some silly reason she'd spent all afternoon cleaning and shoving aside all the odd little knick knacks she'd quickly started accumulating as soon as she started truly having things of her own. She'd been there less than a year and already shelves were overflowing with books, photos of her and her friends, plants (the sort that didn't need much watering or tending to), and other odds and ends.

Thankfully she didn't intend on cooking. Maybe that would change in the future, but she was already a little on-edge and the idea of adding the stress of producing an edible meal was a tad excessive.

Someone knocked at her door, and Rey couldn't decide if she was hoping to open it to Ben or the takeout delivery person.

It was Ben, and like a fool, she spent a solid ten or twenty seconds staring up at him rather than letting him inside. She couldn't help it, or perhaps she just had no shame.

Rey wasn't a short woman by any means but he made her feel that way, towering over her, all broad shoulders and what was undoubtedly a firm, muscular chest barely contained within his crisp white button-up. Long hair that she'd consider begging to run her fingers through, and-

"Can I come in?" he asked lowly, staring down at her intently.

Snapping from her reverie, Rey cleared her throat awkwardly and stepped back, holding the door open for him as she tried in vain to contain her blush. He  _had_  to have noticed by now, but that begged the question, why hadn't he done anything about it? Was he not attracted to her? Did he have a girlfriend? He hadn't mentioned one, but they also hadn't talked about much outside of her writing, and his job.

"I hope you like Italian," she said, keeping her tone light and friendly as she watched him walk into the open-concept kitchen and dining room, separated from the living room with a half-wall that held many of her plants, "I ordered a few different options since I wasn't sure what you'd prefer."

A light smile graced his lips as he turned to face her and leaned back against her kitchen counter. "That sounds great. You didn't have to, you know. I could have picked something up."

Rey waved him off, stepping toward her wine-chiller to grab a-

Hm. Was it suggesting anything to offer him wine? Was that too date-ish?

She hesitated, and decided to go for it, making up a quick excuse. "I find my writing's a bit better after a glass of wine, and I'm curious to see if the same can be said for editing." Gesturing toward the wine-chiller, she asked, "Would you like a glass? Red, or white?"

"I'll have a glass if you plan to," Ben said quietly. "Either is fine."

Pulling out a nice red, Rey took a deep breath, finally asking herself  _why_  exactly, this felt so much like a first date. Or, maybe more accurately, a third or fourth date. If she was being honest with herself, that made her quite nervous. She didn't tend to go past the first or second date - it was her belief that any further that that and it was more likely there would be attachments and feelings and all the ugly stuff that Rey had so far avoided up to this point.

But something about Ben Solo made her want to reconsider that belief.

* * *

About halfway through dinner, Ben had mentally upgraded his previous  _coffee angel_  title for Rey to something considerably closer to temptress, because he was half-convinced she was making those noises on purpose. They'd chosen to eat at her kitchen island, in the high-top seats, sitting next to each other, and he'd never realized how torturous it could be to be so close to her.

With every few bites of chicken marsala she'd close her eyes as her lips wrapped around her fork and she'd hum or let out a light moan. He was holding on by the barest thread - this woman was driving him mad, and he genuinely couldn't tell whether or not it was intentional.

Ben took a long drink of wine, and spoke up. "I had some time yesterday and moved onto second act, and I had some questions about some of the more uh...romantic scenes you have written."

"Oh?"

He hummed in confirmation, mouth going dry as she smiled and gazed at him, gesturing for him to continue.

"It's a little heavy handed, I think," he admitted. His instinct was to apologize for that or possibly say ' _I mean no offense, but-'_ , especially now that they'd sort-of become friends or at least friendly, but she seemed to prefer his blunt honesty. "I know there's supposed to be a lot more to this story than the romance, but right now the way it's written is...well, I think I'd say you're edging it closer to romance novel rather than a fantasy/sci-fi novel that has a central romance."

Rey considered his words while taking another bite, eventually asking, "How would you suggest I go about it? I've tried to balance the action and plot around the romance, but it  _is_  intended to have a central love story."

"I know, and it's great," he nodded, "The way you've set up the characters is sort of like a fairy-tale, but I think you be more subtle. I think that would be more touching. More intimate. I think you'd have more meaningful interactions if they were more tender and less..."

He waved his hand awkwardly, trying to encapsulate his intention of expressing that sometimes less was more.

Rey, for her part, only looked amused.

Chewing nervously at the inside of his cheek, he said quietly, "Okay, so in that scene, with them in the throne room? You've got them in such an intimate setting with the embers coming down all around them after they fight everyone, but I don't know that you need to have them have this long discussion about everything. I think you can imply a lot of intimacy in that scene without having them explicitly have a conversation about what's going on between them."

Rey tilted her head questioningly, and he set his fork down, planting his hands on his thighs as he squeezed them nervously. "You're uh...so...so, she's just found out her parents are never coming back, right? Or, rather, she's finally admitted it - he's helped her admit this and we find out she's probably known all along, no matter how much she's denied it, right?"

Long, slow blinks up at him were her response and it took Ben a moment to realize he'd stopped breathing. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open as she pondered his words seriously.

Wow. Uh…wow.

Every single one of his instincts were screaming at him that he was overstepping his bounds and Ben Solo didn't care.

"And he's realizing that this girl - this nobody from nowhere - is exactly what he needs and wants. He's come from this intensely powerful bloodline, but here's this girl, this perfect equal and she's a nobody, and he's coming to the conclusion that…" Ben shrugged, sighing out, "that his blood - that the  _past -_ doesn't really matter. That where they've come from doesn't matter. Right?"

She nodded slightly, and he took that as a sign to continue. "I think this scene has the potential to be incredibly intimate, but it's not there yet."

After a moment of silence, Rey swiveled her stool and angled toward him, asking, "Okay, what would the dialogue be like? The scene  _should_  be intimate, but if it's not there yet, I'm obviously open to suggestions."

Ben hesitated for just a moment, rethinking what he'd originally considered, but two glasses of wine had made him a little braver than he would have been normally. Clearing his throat, he turned a bit toward her, their knees bumping together as he asked, "Mind if I try something?"

"Go ahead," she shrugged, her tone suddenly breathy.

He let his eyes roam over her face, and he said softly, "I think he'd say something like this-"

And then, he vaulted over the line where  _Professional_ ended and  _Intimate_ began. Eyes wide, air electric, Ben lowered his gaze from her eyes to her lips and something desperate and  _hungry_  manifested itself in his ensuing gruff words.

Reaching up daringly, Ben cupped her face with one hand, noting her widening eyes as his thumb caressed gently over her cheek, and he said, "You have no place in this story. You come from nothing - you  _are_  nothing."

Her brow furrowed in confusion when he paused, but he leaned in slightly, just an inch or so from her lips, whispering, "But not to me."

Not really stopping to consider whether or not she'd mind, he kept his hand where it was, using this example he was giving her as an excuse to stare longingly at her, just the way he'd been trying to avoid doing for a few months now.

A chill went up the back of his neck, and Ben realized he'd moved in even closer. How was it possible to be so close and yet impossibly far all at the same time?

Clearing his throat, he started to pull away as he asked, "Does that seem more intimate than what you have now?"

Rey's eyes were still wide and surprised, and her mouth opened, then closed again. And then, before he had a chance to wonder if he'd crossed a line (he absolutely had, hadn't he?), she closed the distance between them, tilting her head up as she leaned the rest of the way in, kissing him softly, and briefly.

Too briefly.

When she moved to pull away herself he used the hand cupping her face to hold her close while he deepened the kiss, sliding his mouth over hers slowly, tasting the lips he'd been struggling to get off his mind. After a moment, she moaned quietly, reaching up to run her hands through his hair, and he wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her-

She yelped, of course, when he almost pulled her off the stool she sat on, and  _that_  was when Ben remembered they were on kitchen stools and not a couch. Thankfully he caught her, and they both stood up, laughing softly.

He nuzzling his nose into her cheek as he said hesitantly, "I hope that was okay, but if-"

Interrupting with a coy smile, she asked him something he absolutely hadn't expected her to ask.

"Do you have  _any_  idea how long I've been waiting for you to kiss me, Mr. Solo?"

Ben blinked. He couldn't help but pause, either due to the question itself, or how she kept insisting on addressing him. "You do realize you can call me Ben, right?" he asked curiously.

The smile on her lips was no less than mischievous when she replied sweetly, "Yes, sir."

It took Ben's hindbrain to register that the ratcheting drumbeat in his ears was his heart rate going through the roof.

His next breath was audible, and he quirked an eyebrow at her. "Oh. Is  _that_  how it's going to be?"

With a grin, she pulled him down into another deep kiss.

* * *

The next morning, his boss glowered down at him, but Ben could still taste Rey on his lips and there was little this man could do to ruin that, or lessen the overwhelming  _happy_  feeling in his chest.

They hadn't gone further than making out on her couch like a couple of teenagers, and they'd shared a dozen goodbye kisses in her doorway before he'd finally forced himself to leave. And  _fuck_ , every time he thought of her, all he could think of was the way her thighs had tightened around his body as her lips had moved over his, and the way her eyelashes had fluttered as she'd said  _goodnight_.

There'd been a promise of  _sir_  in those words, but she'd never actually verbalized it. Ben was actually grateful. He had a hard enough time understanding or believing that she actually enjoyed spending time with him without the added, charged implications of those words. He still needed to some time to comprehend he wasn't just hallucinating. He was no novice to romance, but he couldn't deny that Rey made the world seem like it had a thin film of wax over it, just by virtue of how  _real_ she was.

He appreciated the respectful distance she kept, but he couldn't deny that he was...curious, about her intentions with calling him that. Was she trying to keep things professional?

Ben considered that for a brief moment before snorting. They'd stopped being professional the moment he'd accidentally sort-of-but-not-really invited himself to her place on a dinner date under the guise of getting work done.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not really, neither of them had really spent much time talking about much of anything after their impromptu makeout session started. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that getting work done during any sort of future dinner meeting was off the table, mostly because they were liable to start going at each other rather than actually editing anything.

Ben stared at his computer screen on his desk, taking note of the old antiquated screensaver coming on before he groaned.

Everything was spiraling, spiraling way too fast out of his control. His plan to keep Rey out of Snoke's clutches had blown up in his face in a way so magnificently Ben was still having flashbacks to the taste of her lips, her earlobe, her neck-

"Fuck," Ben swore, closing his eyes and holding his head in his hands. Not to say that he regretted the night - he'd rather swallow a jar of fire-ants than think that - but in all his scenarios of how the night had gone, he'd literally never entertained that they would have ended up with him pinning her beneath him as he kissed down her-

Nope. Nope nope nope. He was at work, dammit.

It took Ben a few seconds to regain his composure and when he did and looked up from his hands he saw Hux watching him from over his cubicle partition.

"Bad night?" he said. It was clear he was working on his human emotions because the man almost sounded sympathetic.

"Yes."  _No._ "Couldn't sleep."

Well, at least that part was true, but it was mostly because he'd been kicking himself for not staying at Rey's for the night.

Hux seemed to give him an appraising look. "Yeah, you look like death warmed over. Want some coffee?"

Thinking of coffee just made Ben's mind jump to the first time he'd properly met Rey and the healthy flush to her cheeks she'd had then. Then, because clearly he had no self-control over his libido he thought of how easy or how fun it would be to see if she turned red in other places. Or if she would turn redder if she was somehow out of breath, looking up at him and-

A single thought struck Ben then, and it was so blindingly intense and resonating he needed no other proof to verify its veracity other than the tingle of his skin at the thought of her voice.

_Rey Johnson was going to be the end of him, and he was going to enjoy it every step of the way._

Of course, in due line with the rest of his life, Ben wasn't allowed to just ponder and luxuriate in this pleasant realization. Instead, like a bog creature from some uncharted mire, Alistair Snoke appeared in his cubicle entrance with all the fanfare of an sick undertaker.

"I need an update. Rey Johnson," he said, sapping the overall positive mood like some real-life Dementor. Hux wisely and noticeably sat back down behind his side of the partition, leaving Ben alone with the monster. "I still don't have a meeting on the books and that's unacceptable."

He felt himself flush, realizing he'd been ignoring his boss in favor of fantasizing about the most incredible woman he'd ever met and all the plans he had for the next time he saw her.

"I ah- I'm afraid we don't really speak anymore," Ben improv'd, lying his ass off. "I explained to her what an... _honor_  it would be to accept your offer of a meeting but-"

"Not good enough," Snoke interrupted.

A rock plummeted in his stomach, and he met his boss's angry glare by saying quietly, "I'm very sorry Mr. Snoke, but she's not interested, and we've had a bit of a falling out, so I'm not entirely sure what I can do."

The man leaned over his desk, getting within inches of his face, and whispered, "You do whatever you need to do." And then he smiled grimly, sitting back in his chair, considering Ben carefully. He cleared his throat and said, "Tell me Ben, you like your job, don't you?"

Well, at least his thinly veiled threat was hardly a shock. And look, they were on a first-name basis again. Wonderful.

"Of course," he nodded.  _Lied._  "And I tried. I explained that this would be an ideal step for her career, and-"

This was the worst part about working with Snoke. He never overtly insulted someone, mostly because he had better things to do than to waste the brainpower to come up with something more than "incompetent" to describe his employees. He just let his employees talk and talk and talk and eventually, no matter how well thought out your arguments were you realized quite early on that no amount of talking was going to change the incontrovertible fact that Snoke was the one signing your paychecks.

Ben's words died in his throat, and something burning and cold settled in his stomach. Snoke was not a tall man, but he made Ben feel small nonetheless. He had a talent for doing so to those who hadn't lived up to his expectations, all while making them feel buoyed by his "hopes" for them at the same time.

"You're a smart man, Ben. Do what you need to do."

Ben took in a deep breath, and nodded. And then, with absolutely no intention of doing so, he said quietly, "I'll try again."

That seemed to placate the man. He smiled softly, as if looking down at a particularly noteworthy pet and said, "See that you do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Onfire's Tumblr](https://thebuildingsnotonfire.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> [ Onfire's Twitter](https://twitter.com/thebuildingsno1)
> 
> [ Attack's Tumblr](https://attackofthedarkcurses.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Attack's Twitter](https://twitter.com/AttackotDC)


End file.
